


Yellow Somethings

by kidcarma



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Arguing, Dysfunctional Relationships, Jabberwock Island (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kidcarma/pseuds/kidcarma
Summary: There are yellow flowers in the vase on his bedside table."I hate you," Komaeda seethes."I can live with that."But it's only because he has no other choice.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 6
Kudos: 183





	Yellow Somethings

**Author's Note:**

> this is. gestures vaguely. yeah

“I hate you,” Komaeda seethes, holding his bandaged stump of a wrist to his chest like a wounded animal, ice cold and unwavering in his stare and Hinata blinks. Blinks and meets Komaeda in the eye because he knows that he means it. Truly means it.  
A wash of regret as he scans the heap of a body in front of him, wonders how they got to where they are, doesn’t have to wonder if there was anything they could have done to divert the path of fate because they’re here now, so he has to harden his heart until it doesn’t hurt at all.

“I can live with that.”

But it’s only because he has no other choice. 

* * *

Hinata tugs the blanket off of Komaeda’s body- Komaeda who doesn’t even give him the pretense to pretend he’s sleeping and for that Hinata is almost grateful. It means he doesn’t have to hide how much of an asshole he’s going to be about this whole thing.

“Get up.” Komaeda flinches reflexively, exposed to the cooler air. And he decidedly, does not get up. He only keeps staring at the wall across the room, brows furrowed into something Hinata knows is irritated, but it’s nothing if not against his nature to eventually obey. 

Hinata hands him the glass of water, two pills. Watches him swallow and makes him open his mouth, checks under his tongue to make sure he isn’t faking.   
He’s done it before. On days he’s determined to do anything but _live_ , and on those days Hinata ends up with angry scratches, teeth marks on his fingers.

And Komaeda will end up with two pills in his stomach, and the taste of Hinata’s skin on his cracked lips.

But that’s not today. Today Komaeda swallows without a fight, something sort of resigned to it, tugs the blanket back over his body with a ‘hmph’, and Hinata will turn the lights off on his way out. 

* * *

“You _stink_ , Komaeda.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah?” Hinata grimaces but then realizes Komaeda is _probably right_. He can’t remember things as well when he’s committing all of the space in his brain to undoing the twists and tangles of his relationship with Komaeda. How to make him eat. How to make him get dressed. “It’s probably because I’m so busy looking after you.”

“I didn’t _ask_ for this,” Komaeda frowns, digs his heels harder into the wooden floor and in turn, Hinata has to pull him even more toward the bathroom. “I didn’t ask for you to take care of me. I didn’t _ask for you to wake me up-_ ”

“Shut up.”

“You should have let me rot in there _why did you wake me up_ -”

“Shut up, Komaeda.”

The bath water is warm. Not enough to burn, but hot enough to keep Komaeda complacent, prevent him from slipping in the occasional complaint about how he’s cold, and will play up his shivers to make Hinata feel bad as he’s working the conditioner through Komaeda’s hair.

“Is it because you feel bad?”

“What?” Hinata asks distractedly. His fingers are pulling apart knots, the faded plastic comb long abandoned over on the countertop. 

“You do this because you feel bad,” Komaeda _tells_ him, now it’s no longer a question. “You were the one responsible for bringing her in there in the first place. Having to revive us was a consequence of the situation you created. You feel bad. You’re trying to break even.”

“If that’s what you want to think,” Hinata mutters because he _knows_ Komaeda likes to play this way.

“Or is it because the image of my dead body lives in your mind.”

“Komaeda-“

“That you can’t stand the thought of me dead knowing it would be _your_ _fault_ so you’re doing everything you can to keep me from turning into a corpse-“

“ _Komaeda_ -“

“Well for all the times you put your _filthy hands on me_ , it didn’t work before, now did it? So why-“

Water sloshes over the side of the tub. 

“That’s _enough_ , Komaeda.” 

It’s more than enough.

* * *

There’s a vase on his bedside table. Light blue. Lately flowers have taken to appearing there- Hinata’s not sure where they’re coming from, because it hasn’t been him, and Komaeda certainly hasn’t admitted to anything.  
But whoever put them there, they’re wilting now, and as Hinata gazes at the dying petals, he decides that he’ll be the one to replace them today.  
Sweeps the ones that have fallen off into the trash can, thinks better of what to do with the rest because he’s pretty sure they have a compost bin going on somewhere on the island, and when he returns, it’s with a fresh bouquet.

They’re yellow. Yellow somethings. His mind would have the information if he just thought about it, but sometimes, knowing more than he could have ever hoped to, having a lifetime’s worth of knowledge accessible right in his head- that’s. That’s too much. For something small like these… yellow somethings.

They have to have a meaning, he knows, everything means something. And that despite everything, maybe these mean _‘I’m sorry’_.  
Fingers with fresh teeth marks wrapped around green stems, and he places them into the vase. 

* * *

“Does pretending help?” Komaeda mumbles, and it’s into the calloused skin of Hinata’s palm. Cupping Komaeda’s face, thumb against his cheekbone, Hinata casts his gaze down momentarily.  
Komaeda’s drugged up on his painkillers, dopey half utterances and these are the times where he’s more likely to speak soft. Unfiltered, still, but taking the edge off his pain takes away a lot of the appeal in lashing out- hurting Hinata and shutting him out, as a punishment for himself. 

“Help, how?”

“Help you forget,” Komaeda sighs. “When you held me like this, and you actually meant it. That you don’t mean it now.”

“I do.”

“You don’t,” Komaeda shakes his head. “You could never lie to me.”

“I can lie to you now,” Hinata suggests, and he swallows thickly. The words are heavy, sticking to his tongue and aching the back of his throat on the way out. “Would that make it easier? We wouldn’t have to stop pretending, and then one day it’ll be like we were never pretending at all.”  
He has the talent for it. It would be _so easy to just-_

“It hurts, Hinata.”

“Okay,” Hinata nods. Leans forward to kiss Komaeda on the forehead. Knows he shouldn’t be in any pain, so it must be the kind that can’t be touched by any amount of medication. A memory. “Okay. Lay down for me, alright?”

_For me._

* * *

And so Komaeda doesn’t say anything when Hinata’s given himself a haircut. Jagged and choppy and done in a rush- a blind panic maybe- not that it matters, because it has the tendency to grow back fast anyway. Chews on his toast and does not outwardly note the skin bitten raw and bleeding on Hinata’s thumbs, and keeps his comments to himself aside from the occasional snide _‘you’re one to talk_ ’ when Hinata tells him he needs to get more sleep. 

There are only so many times you can walk the same beach, look up at the same night sky, before it fades into monotony just like everything else.

* * *

Komaeda eyes the flowers.

The yellow somethings in the light blue vase.

And suddenly there’s a crashing and the vase isn’t on his bedside table anymore and the yellow somethings are scattered across the floor.

Hinata sighs, his lip pulling down into a frown as he has to reach out and grasp Komaeda’s wrist to prevent him from picking up the shards with his hand.

“Stop.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I did that?” Komaeda’s stare is sharp, piercing, like he intends to burn as he grins, recalling the way he’d swatted it off the table. A petulant cat, knocking things off shelves only for the sake of a reaction.

“Because I know why you did it, Komaeda,” Hinata scoffs as he picks up the pieces much more carefully.

“Because you know everything, right?”

“Because I know you’re lashing out.” He dumps the remains of the vase into the trash, the clinking sound as each shard hits the bottom of the bin deafening over Komaeda’s wheezing breaths. 

“Aren’t you sick of it? Aren’t you sick of me?” 

“I am, yeah,” Hinata frowns. “But that’s not going to stop me.”

“It should,” Komaeda clings to the front of Hinata’s shirt with his one good hand and Hinata has to accommodate for the sudden weight with widened eyes. “I’m not worth it. I’m wasting away and all you’re doing is watching and-”

“I’m _curing_ you.”

“Hahahah _ahahaha!_ What a waste of talent!” Komaeda buckles. “I certainly don’t feel cured, Hinata. Are you sure it’s working? It’s really a shame. All I do is hurt you, and you just sit there and take it!”

“What do you want me to _say_ , Komaeda?”

“Something. Anything.”

“Do you want me to tell you that I resent you?” Hinata spits. Stops. A sudden intake of breath as his gaze flickers to the floor- a mosaic of water and scattered yellow somethings under his feet. “Is that what you want to hear? That I regret waking you up and taking care of you and dealing with you every day because it’s my obligation and you’re the only thing left giving me the purpose, otherwise, I wouldn’t still be alive because if that’s what you want to hear then yes, Komaeda. I resent you.”

  
“... I’m sorry about the vase.”

“I know.” 

* * *

“Here,” Hinata murmurs, holding his hands out. He and Komaeda are sat side by side on the bed, legs dangling over the edge. Wordlessly, Komaeda passes him one of two shirts he’s been so generous as to expand his wardrobe to. Rotating two shirts only goes so far though, because he’s worn a hole in the side of one of them where the stitching is.

Their arms bump as Hinata turns the shirt inside out to expose its seams, threads the needle, and they settle into a comfortable silence as he patches the rip.

“I wish I wasn’t so useless,” Komaeda laments without any real pain, rests his head on Hinata’s shoulder to watch him work.

“You’d be able to do this yourself if you finally let me fit you for a prosthetic.” 

“I’m.” He looks to the floor. It’s dry. Clean. The bedside table is empty. “I’m not ready for that.”

“S’okay,” Hinata nudges him. “And when you are, all you need to do is tell me.”

* * *

The next day there’s a tall, clear glass on Komaeda’s bedside table. The kind matching the set from the restaurant kitchen. Nobody will notice if one has gone missing.

And there are yellow flowers in it.

Hinata certainly didn’t put them there.

* * *

This is. This is it, Hinata realizes.  
He’s staring out at the waves. A familiar sight among many he’s grown used to, the same routine day in and day out on the island. The same faces, same sights, same sounds, same smells. The salt water seaspray whips his hair, and he lets it. No use pushing it out of his eyes when it’ll get blown right back.

This is it. This island. These people. This life. This is all he has.

The tide rolls over his ankles, toes buried in the sand, hands red and raw with teeth marks shoved into his pockets, and Hinata sighs.  
He has to live with it. 

But he wishes he didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to dizzy for writing an analysis of this piece ;;; im EXTREMELY flattered someone took the time to write this, putting so much thought and care into picking apart something ive created. if youre interested, you can read it here!:  
> https://hopetwink.tumblr.com/post/633686840978915328/fic-analysis-yellow-somethings


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